America may be the leader of the free world, yet it can't get it's own house in order.
Sun, 23. January 2011
A Typical American Week
I'm a Brit living in Australia but one of the blog sites I have followed for some time is the American 'Deep Thoughts,' because I admire the way the author doggedly researches and chronicles the incessant crimes committed by deluded American priests. It's a big job to take on. Take last week's blogs:
Monday: Baptist youth pastor Jonathan Tyler Giles pleaded guilty to charges he raped a sixteen year old girl member of his youth group.
Wednesday: Pastor Lewis Givens accused of assaulting a nine year old female mentally handicapped girl.
Wednesday: Gordon Libby, who owns a Christian business called Pastors4U and is a lay pastor, accused of kidnapping a minor and performing a sexual act on himself in front of his victim.
Thursday: Charles Reed drove a bus for Mt. Calvary Baptist Church. He was a devout servant of the lord - and a pedophile. Reed took an innocent fourteen year old girl to his house after church and raped her. The girl had a broken leg at the time. Reed was also sentenced for the molestation of a 4-year-old girl.
Thursday: The trial of youth pastor Keith Dickerson began. He was charged with raping a four year old girl and a woman. He is also reportedly charged with distributing obscene material to a minor, incest, sodomy and sex abuse of a girl, under twelve years old.
Thursday: Pastor Otis Holland was arrested and charged with sexually assulting a minor under the age of fourteen and a minor under the age of sixteen.
Friday: Matthew Porter was a volunteer associate pastor at The Baptist Church at Granbury and a Chaplain at a nursing home. Police arrested him for voyeurism after he was identified in one of the photos trying to adjust the camera.
Saturday: Pastor Carlton F. Hammons, a convicted child molester, bank robber, and former druggie was convicted in October of 2010, but his sentencing has been delayed again.
Sunday: Pastor Larry Gene Martin was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a twelve year old girl.
Remember, these are the people who lecture us loudly and constantly about morality - but as the author rightly points out, the people who employ these religious thugs ought be held responsible too, because many of the offenders are REPEAT child predators who would not be employed if proper background checks were carried out.
Stories like the above abbreviated sample continue to be listed in 'Deep Thoughts' daily. Whilst reporting in the national press is usually ad hoc and regionalised, the blog collates reports across America and serves as a stark daily catalogue of the ongoing extent of the crimes committed by church officials and church employees against innocent children in their care. I just look at it and marvel that no concerted effort is made to stamp it out. The lack of Catholic priests listed surprised me at first until I realised that Catholic priests are protected from prosecution by their employers.
It is no comfort to know that Catholics are not the only ones that commit such awful crimes.
See 'Deep Thoughts' at http://mojoey.blogspot.com/